With Funny Girl off the boards last week and the impact of the 2-for-1 ticket prices of the Broadway Week promotion, Broadway box office receipts for the week ending Sept. 10 took an 18% tumble from the previous week, settling in at $21,334,228.
Gone from the roster was Funny Girl and its $2 million-plus contributions to the weekly overall tally. (Actually, Once Upon A One More Time had also closed the previous week as well, but with considerably less of an impact on Broadway’s total box office, and the arrival of the previewing Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through The Cotton Patch helped offset the absence of the Britney Spears musical).
Attendance for the 22 productions was 189,965, a drop of 9% from the previous week, the smaller decline (compared to receipts) attributable at least in part to the 2-for-1 tickets. (The seasonal NYC Broadway Week promotion began on Sept. 4 and continues through Sept. 17.)
Helping to keep the total box office figure from sliding even further was an upturn in grosses for A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical, which saw an increase of $115,536 to $1,008,021, a jump at least partly attributable to a new schedule that saw the replacement of the Wednesday evening performance with a Thursday matinee. The show’s attendance for the week was 7,437, a boost of 1,116 over the previous week. In all, 81% of seats at the Broadhurst were filled, compared to 69% the previous week.
The latest addition to the Broadway roster, Purlie Victorious starring Leslie Odom, Jr., played its initial six previews at the Music box Theatre, grossing $227,928 and filling 61% of seats. Opening night is Sept. 27.
In addition to A Beautiful Noise, the top earners for the week, each grossing more than $1 million, were Aladdin, Back To The Future, Hamilton, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, MJ, Moulin Rouge!, Sweeney Todd, The Lion King and Wicked.
Season to date, Broadway has grossed $476,213,420 with total attendance of 3,876,389 at 88% of capacity.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For complete box office listings, visit the League’s website.